Self-Publishing: How startups like NotionPress, Cinnamon Teal are changing the way books are created

These ventures offer a range of services - from editing and copyright registration to cover design and distribution - making them necessary cogs in the growing wheel of self-publishing.

By Radhika P Nair & Megha Reddy S

BANGALORE: It took a score of rejection slips for author Amish Tripathi to go direct to his reader. Chancing his luck, the former banker published The Immortals of Meluha on his own - it went on to sell 40,000 copies. Four years on, the best-selling author of the Shiva trilogy is the mascot for India's self-publishing industry, where aspiring writers rely on a network of young companies to ease the process of turning ideas into books.

These ventures offer a range of services - from editing and copyright registration to cover design and distribution - making them necessary cogs in the growing wheel of self-publishing.

"Authors such as Tripathi have become superstars through self-publishing and that has increased interest among those who want to publish their work," said Naveen Valsakumar, 27, who co-founded NotionPress, which has built an online platform that allows authors to write, format and design a book for free.

The Chennai-based company also offers paid packages, where it edits the manuscript, designs the book and even creates promotional posters according to the author's specifications. The two-year-old company charges between 25,000 and 55,000 and has published about 2,500 books so far.

"By end of 2014, we hope to publish books by about 1 lakh authors, of whom at least 30% will use the paid service," said Valsakumar, who teamed up with co-founders Bhargava A and Janardhanan Pillay to set up the firm in 2012.

NotionPress is one of about half-adozen such ventures, including Cinnamon Teal, Pothi and Zorba Publishers, that cater to those who want to become published authors but are unable to attract the attention of traditional publishers such as Penguin and Random House.

"Self-publishing is freedom of expression," said Tripathi, 39, who last year bagged a $1-million (about Rs 6-crore) book deal from Westland Press, which publishes his books that have now sold over 2 million copies. "Earlier, it was difficult for a middle-class person to get a book published without the backing of a publisher. Now, with companies providing turnkey services it has become a lot easier."

Also, self-published authors get up to 70% of the royalty while in traditional publishing new authors get less than 10%. "Many authors do not even get a response from publishers," said Shalini Gupta, 49, founder of Zorba Publishers. The company started out as a traditional publisher about three years ago, but became a self-publishing platform in 2012, offering services such as editing and design for a fee that ranges from Rs 10,000 to over Rs 35,000. The company aims to earn revenue of Rs 50 lakh next year.

Leonard Fernandes, co-founder of Goa-based publishing service provider Cinnamon Teal, said demand has doubled since a year ago. The firm, one of the first to offer such services to authors in India, was set up in 2007. "Earlier people did not understand the concept.

Now there is a certain sure-footedness in self-publishing," said Fernandes, who founded the company with his wife Queenie. The company, which charges about Rs 15,000 for end-to-end services, expects to earn Rs 1 crore in the next two years.

While multiple rejections are the primary reason for most authors deciding to publish on their own, others do so to have greater control over the process.

"The level of involvement an author can have in the process from the presentation to design cannot be matched in mainstream publishing," said Sumana Khan, author of supernatural thriller 'The Revenge of Kaivalya'. The former information technology professional published the book with the help of Cinnamon Teal in 2010. The book was backed by Tripathi's publisher Westland Press in 2013.

Like Westland Press, others are looking at self-published works with keen interest. "We have many self-published books," said Kapish Mehra, managing director of Rupa Publications, which brought out the five-part 'Horn OK Please' series by Karthik Iyengar. "As a business, I feel it (self-publishing) is a very interesting proposition."

There are, however, a number of challenges. Jaya Jha, co-founder of Bangalore-based Pothi, said authors sometimes do not realise that self-publishing companies are not another kind of publisher. "When going with a self-publishing company the author is the publisher. And the most important responsibility of a publisher is marketing, which in case of self-publishing, falls on the authors' shoulders," said Jha, 31, an IIT-Kanpur and IIM-Lucknow alumnus. The firm, which declined to reveal revenue, has published over 4,000 print titles and over 2,500 ebooks.

Distribution is another challenge. Neither the authors nor entrepreneurs have the kind of networks that publishers such as Penguin have with distributors to push their books onto the shelves of hundreds of bookstores.

However, online sites such as Flipkart and Amazon are levelling the playing field. "We list the books on these sites and print the book only when an order is placed," said Cinnamon Teal's Fernandes. Ebooks are also helping ease the distribution bottleneck. In the past six months, Fernandes said, every second book ordered from Cinnamon Teal was an ebook.

"Once ebooks become more popular, the distribution problem will be solved," said Tripathi. "Then self-publishing can be as successful as mainline publishing in India.

ET View: Why Self Publishing is a Good Idea Indeed

Among the unexpected benefits of the spread and ubiquity of the internet and improvements in printing technology, is the emergence of selfpublishing. As several bestsellers show, it is no longer restricted to vanity publishing. Selfpublishing once seemed to threaten the old network of agents, publishers and publicists who dominated the industry. But it forced publishers to adapt to a new model of doing business: today, if self-published books become a success, publishers are saved the job of scouting new talent and adopt the writers immediately.